Guide 06 · Developer docs

The APIs: REST, GraphQL and custom endpoints

Every Core dna site answers three kinds of API request under /cdna-api: REST for everything, GraphQL for reads that span several entity types, and web events for endpoints you define yourself as jobs. Which fits which task, one worked request for each, and what is true of all three. Jobs were called hooks until the module was renamed Orchestration; the API's routes still use the old name.

L1–L3

Unit 03 of 07 1 page

Reading with GraphQL

Updated 23/10/2026 01:50

The read-only endpoint that fetches several entity types in one round trip, with only the fields you name. Mainly for the headless developer whose front end needs pages, posts and a menu on one screen.

One page, read top to bottom: the endpoint and the request a reader can reproduce at once, the boundary (queries only; every write goes through REST), the query shape with three worked queries, the entity names and arguments it accepts, the home-page query that is the reason to use it, who may call it, what a query costs, and when REST is the better choice.

It is a GraphQL-style endpoint rather than a full GraphQL server, with its own rules about what a query looks like, so read them before pointing a GraphQL client library at it. It uses the same field names and filters as REST, so Shaping the response with properties and Filters, ordering and paging carry over.

In this unit

Read in order

01 The GraphQL API One POST endpoint that reads several entity types in one round trip, with only the fields you name. It is GraphQL-style rather than a full GraphQL server: the query shape it accepts, its arguments and filters, who can call it, what a query costs, and the rules that keep a valid-looking query from failing.

Objects ReferenceGenerated from the platform, so it is always current

API ReferenceEvery REST endpoint, in cURL, PHP, Python and JavaScript

Reading with GraphQL

In this unit